Get Up Early: The First Decision of the Day, Why God Speaks in the Dark, and Winning the Day Before It Starts

I think this is a good note for everybody out there. There is Mornings with Matt, the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast, where we discuss the connection between life and acting. All righty, good morning, everybody. Welcome to Mornings with Matt on the Dearing Acting Studio Podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm Matthew Dearing here with Brian Sweeney and Joey Sweeney. Today we're talking about getting up early. Getting up early.

Matt, you look good, dog. You look so good. Look at you. You look good. Oh. You look good. Look at that. Yeah. Yeah. That's nice. Heck yeah. Okay, so. That's nice. So getting up early is a big deal to me, as you guys know. It's something that I preach because I've seen the power of what it's done in my life, which I think is really cool. I'm always like, if something's working for me, it might work for you.

Might as well talk about it. So we're going to do that today after we are done with our daily devotional. Brian, guy, hit this thing up, shall we? Daily devotional. All right. So we're starting off today in Mark 1, 35. In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place and was praying there. All right.

Boom. In the morning. Jesus was known for going to secluded places and praying, but this one specifically, dealing with the morning, is while it was still dark in the morning. I was waiting for the justification there because it was just kind of weird the way you prayed. I'm just kidding. Yeah, Brian's like, Jesus would pray all the time, but I mean, in this case, it was early.

No, Jesus, he talked a lot about this, a lot about being alone with God. It's all over the Bible. I had a hard time deciding which verses to use because getting up early is all over the place. But okay. So I'm always thinking like, you know, what would Jesus do? WWJD. Apparently, Jesus would get up early in the morning. Yeah. Does it say late morning? No. Early morning.

Early morning. And specifically while it's still dark. Mm. Jesus got up, left the house, and went to a secluded place. That's important too, and was praying there, and that's important. Yeah. Lots of importance. So if we think about here, like what we're getting is, you know, and we're going to talk about this throughout the episode. So it's like the why of Jesus getting up when it's dark, why leaving the house, why going to a secluded place, and then once you're up, what are you going to do with it?

Mm-hmm. You know, and those are the things we're going to dive into. This is facts. So why don't we hit up our next verse here, Bri Guy? Sure. The second one is Psalm 5-3. In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice. In the morning, I will order my prayer to you and eagerly watch. So this is like a prayer, right? Yeah. This psalm is a prayer.

Are the psalms all, like, are they all a prayer to God? Do you know? I think so, but I'm not 100%, honestly. Okay. So what makes you think so? Based on the fact that most of the time it seems to be a prayer, but I can't with certainty tell you that, yes, that is true. It might be the whole thing is like a prayer from David or something to God.

I can't remember if that's the psalms. I got to study the Bible more, so I know some of these specifics. But this sounds like a prayer to God, right? This is what it sounds like to me. So somebody, let's call it David here, is praying to God, saying, in the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice. In the morning, I will order my prayer to you and eagerly watch.

So, to me, that's just like every day. Start the day with God and then saying, like, all right, I'm just going to get out of the way and let you do your thing. Mm-hmm. I'll just step back. You do you. Yeah. You know, you lead me, and I'm willing to do that. But by doing it in the morning, you're not asking for God to help you when you're already stressed.

Right, yeah. You're saying, hey, you're going to hear my voice right away. So, like I said, I always recommend people wake up early because that's something I started doing back in 2017, and it changed everything for me. And I started seeing things differently. As we talked about in a different episode, the game of life started to slow down a bit for me. Mm-hmm. And I believe that a big part of that was this extra time that I was essentially giving myself every day.

Mm-hmm. I was giving me time for me daily and then created these rituals around it. Yeah. To protect myself and protect, you know, me from the world a little bit. Because it's not noisy in the morning. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You can sort of defend yourself that way. Yeah. Well, if you go back into the verse about Jesus, the first one, it's the same kind of deal. If you think about all that he was dealing with in that everywhere he went, people were following him, like huge crowds of people and his disciples also were always asking questions and trying to gain knowledge and help on understanding.

But then, like, literally because of that, same way that, like, the busier we get, it's the same kind of thing. You as a dad, you're even busier than, like, Joey and I in that sense, right? Mm-hmm. So, like, he had to. Yeah. That, like, if he was going to make that time with God happen, that's when he had to do it. Mm-hmm. Or else it wasn't going to happen because he understood what was coming in the day.

Also, could you imagine if Matthew Dearing was alive, like, now Matthew Dearing? Like, he probably would have been up and been like, yo, let's go pray, Jesus. Just like, like, like, could you imagine being the one guy? I thought about that. That gets up early with Jesus? For real. You know, because, because Brian's right, you know, the crowds follow him, it makes sense why he did it, but, like, something tells me right now that, like, there's, there's got to be a couple of Matthew Dearings in this story somewhere that, like, got up.

Well, Jesus wasn't going to say no. Yeah, exactly. Like, if he, if, if, if somebody was up and then they were like, Jesus, what you doing? He would probably be like, yeah, I'm going to pray in a secluded place to God. You want to come with? He's like, I'm going to have some alone time. Yeah. And the disciples was like, can I, can I come? Can I come?

That sounds fun. Can I join you? Yeah. But, but I, I always say, too, you know, when you get up in the morning, and we'll talk about this later, but you're never going to want to. And, and then, but once you do it, you don't regret it. It's like going to the gym. Like, you got to make the choice to do it. But then once you're up, you're like, oh, I'm so glad I got a kickstart on this day.

Yeah. I'm so glad I'm not, you know, just like rushing through my morning or I didn't hit the snooze alarm, et cetera. And, and, and I think there's a, um, I wrote this down here that there's a difference between saying, get up early and don't sleep. Yeah. And I want to be, I want to be clear on that, you know, cause, cause I've had, um, you know, I've gotten kickback as people often do when they share their philosophies on life.

And, and, and I've gotten criticism from this idea of like, you know, you need to sleep, you know, you gotta do this. And I'm like, yeah, I get that. I love sleep. I'm a huge fan of sleep. Sleeping is awesome guys. That doesn't change the fact that I, that I want to get up early and that I'm set to get up early and that I don't always get eight hours of sleep.

Mm-hmm. And I do sometimes, of course, sometimes. And sometimes I get a great nap and sometimes I don't. And, and, and who knows, who knows if I average more deep sleep than the next person. Um, but I'm not comparing anyone to me and I'm not comparing me to anybody else. I'm just comparing me to me. And I know that when I get up early and I get in front of my day, it allows me to accomplish more.

Yeah. Yeah, totally. And I, I mean, just back to that point, you know, the only person you should compare yourself to is you. Otherwise we get caught in that worldly problem that everybody's comparing themselves to each other. And it's like, no, compare yourself to you yesterday or you a month ago or you a year ago. Like where have you progressed? And if you haven't, why? Yeah. You know?

And then you can set up goals for you for tomorrow and you for next week and you for next year that are realistic. And you're like, if I was at this place that I can achieve, that would be good for me. Yeah. For where I am compared to where I am now, to where I'd like to be. That would be good. But if I try to say, oh, I want to be just like this other person in six months.

Well, you don't know what it really took to become that person. You don't know what it really took to gain whatever achievement that person has or what other, what potential God-given gifts that person was born with. So to try to compare yourself in that way and to set goals in that way is never going to be good. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Paul has a comment here.

Is this Paul DeBarber? Paul DeBarber, yes. He was doing his meditations last night and they were so good, those meditations. He said, good morning, guys! He said, Jesus might be talking about meditation as secluded place, smiley face, going within every day. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Absolutely, Paul. And as a matter of fact, it says, you went to this secluded place and was praying there. And some of the interpretations of that verse say meditate.

Like meditate, pray, to become one with the Lord essentially in that spot. And yeah, so you're going to this secluded place. The secluded place is like, it's alone with you, right? And ideally, we want to get away from the noise of the world. We want to get away from, you know, metaphorically, all the traffic and all the cars whizzing by and all the sounds of TV shows and different things.

And we want to be alone with God, or as Paul would say, with source. Yeah. Yes, yes. Okay, so I mentioned this for a second, but we're going to, our first segment of the day, we're going to be talking about deciding and how important decisions are. And waking up is your very first decision of the day. So that's going to be the first segment. And after that, we are going to dive into how God does speak to us in the dark.

I believe that. I've experienced that. And many people have said the same thing, that God talks to us in the dark. And I believe that's also why Jesus gets up, because it specifically says, when it's still dark. So we're going to talk about that. And then we want to talk about winning the day and the idea of winning the day before the day even begins, rather than trying to win the day at the end.

You want to win the day in the beginning. And that starts with waking up. So those are going to be our three segments today. We're going to dive into that first decision of the day as soon as we get back from these messages. have so much gratitude, like more than I can even express. Like, I have gratitude for the teachers, I have gratitude for this whole studio, for the students in the class, for my scene partner, for Matt, and the craft itself, which I just was able to see so beautifully and so raw and vulnerable in not just myself, but everybody else, and it Just give up.

Just quit. Good, scratch your belly. Because in this life, you can't win. Boom. All right. We're talking about getting up early and. And staying up late. This is. I had to do it. Well, you can stay up late. I have no problem with that. Yeah, this is facts. But if you get up early, when you get up, when you decide to wake up, it is a decision and it will be the first decision of your day.

And you guys can probably attest to this, but this is my personal experience. When I make that choice to hit the snooze alarm or to roll over in bed and I don't follow through on what I meant to do in the morning, I never feel good when I first wake up. It never feels good. It never feels good. I attest to this statement. Same. And I felt this feeling and it's not a good one.

Don't do it. Right? Yeah, for real. No, it kind of goes back to like once you hit the snooze, you're kind of in a daze. So then you're like, okay, how many alarms do I have? You're not counting anymore. Sometimes like you'll hit the last snooze and you didn't know it was the last snooze and then you're two hours behind, right? Sometimes you get the next one, but even if you get the next one, like did that five or ten minutes like really do you any better?

No, and then you have to do that recovery feeling, right? Yeah. It's like you know you didn't do what you – like you said, what you said you're going to do and now you've got to work on recovering it. You have to self-talk a little. You have to be like, ah, dang it. It's okay. I forgive you. Right, yeah. God forgive me for doing what I just did because I know what I just did and I'm still up early, but I'm not up as early as I wanted to be.

Right. And then you start with a fight versus starting with like, heck yeah, let's go. Let's get in the shower. Let's put feet to ground. Well, and that goes back to that internal battle, right? So when Paul was saying here in the comments that you go to this secluded place inside you and you want to be in peace when you're doing that, and if you don't make that first decision of the day, as Joey's saying, you risk being at odds with yourself, being in this battle.

And here's the deal. You can sleep in. You can wake up at 9 in the morning, 10 in the morning. You can wake up at noon. Yeah. It all really depends on your life and what you want to do with your life and honestly what your schedule is. Yeah. Because I'm not saying, you know, like for instance, my brother-in-law works in the emergency room and he likes to work the night shift.

Yeah. So he goes in from like 10 p.m. to 10 a.m. He's going to go to bed at like noon. You know, he's going to wake up at 8 p.m. Like that's still getting up early depending on his schedule. He may set his alarm back, whatever it is, like an hour or so, to make sure that he can get a head start on his day. And that's the thing.

So it's a concept more than it is a time, right? So like you said, for a person like that, what's it about at the end of the day? Like what's the core of it? The core of it is, like you said, you know, you get yourself set before anything comes at you. So say you do work that late emergency shift. You go to bed at 10 a.m.

And you usually get up at 8, 8 p.m. Because then that's when you have dinner and you go right in. Well, instead, you get up at 7 p.m. Or 6.30 p.m. And then what do you do? You find your time. You go to the Bible. You get showered up. You do something that fills you up. Say you have a goal to, you know, pursue one of your passions that's not work.

That's where you get the time to do that. Right. So that's what the concept is about. So then you look at your life and you go, honestly, if I am a person on a 9 to 5, it makes sense to get up super early to make this work. If I'm not, where does it make sense where it will equal out? Yeah, and going, like, non-comparison, what does it look like for me, like you said, and Jake, in my life, right?

Just making sure that time happens and setting yourself up, you say this a lot, for playing offense versus defense. I think when you're getting up right when you have to, you may have the amount of time you need to shower and do the things that need to happen, but you're not getting the time to, like, really get ahead on things. Yeah. Right. And deciding to do something that you don't want to do is an obstacle you're going to face all day long, every day.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. There's always stuff that's going to come up that you don't want to do. So this very first decision, you are speaking to you, and you're telling yourself, I am this. And you can say, I am a morning person. I am somebody who attacks the day. I am someone who's excited to jump in today and be grateful for today. Or you can say, I am a procrastinator.

But that's the thing. A lot of people won't say, I am a procrastinator. No, but they don't want to admit it. But whether they know it or not, they've already said it by hitting the snooze alarm. That's what I'm saying. Oh, I see. Got you. The second you push that button or the second you roll over, you've told yourself, I am a procrastinator, and you've set the first decision off for the day.

Yeah. And then that's the battle that Joey was talking about. You have to work to overcome that because you already know it's true about you because you've already done it. And so it's about setting the day, setting the intention, and then knowing exactly why you're going to do it. Like, for instance, I prepped you guys last night on today's show. Yeah. I said, straight up, guys, the show's called Get Up Early.

Yeah. So I'm warning you right now, you're going to want to get up early because we're talking about this thing. You're not going to want to feel like you're playing defense on a day like today. And so just do that thing, right? And then last night, man, I had such a good time preparing the week for myself. I'm setting my clothes, doing all the good rituals that you can do before bed.

It really set up your morning. And I looked at my alarm, and I have a regular, like, bedtime alarm thing on my phone that gets me up at 4.30. And I looked at it, and I was like – and I saw one of my old ones on there, and I was like, I feel like it's a 3.30 day tomorrow. So I pushed the 3.30 button. Yeah. And then I also pushed the 4.45 button.

So I had, like, backups. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But the truth was, in that moment last night, I made the decision that today is a 3.30 kind of day. Here's what's crazy, and I know I've talked about this before, and people – so many people can attest to what I'm saying. Mm-hmm. If you really, really, really, really, really, really decide, your mind is crazy powerful. Yeah. So this morning, I kid you not, I woke up, and I was like, oh, no, because I was awake.

Yeah. I woke up, and I had energy, and I was like, oh, no. 3? 2.30? And I was like – I was like – now I have to try to go back to sleep, you know? 12 o'clock. Bros, I rolled over. I grabbed the phone, and then the alarm went off. What? I woke up within 10 seconds of my alarm. But before? Before my alarm. Yeah, that's crazy.

The alarm did not wake me up. I woke up, and then my alarm was my backup to me. Harry Thomas, no alarm clock needed. And he's right, but it's got to be real. That's the thing. And if I'm honest with myself, I don't always tell myself to the degree I did last night that tomorrow morning is a 3.30 kind of day and mean it. Yeah. I hit the alarm, and you know me.

I overcome a lot. So when the alarm goes off, I get up 99% of the time. But if I really set my intention, and that's the idea. You've got to set the intention. You've got to know your why. I was like – I couldn't – I mean I was dumbfounded this morning. I was like, dude, this is great. Well, and that's what's interesting, right, because it goes back to you with your earlier time because you are before us.

Your time is before us nine times out of ten, right? So you can do that thing where you didn't do it this morning, but you have that backup alarm, and your backup alarm is before ours. So you're in here right before us. We would never know, right? And so it goes back to you're the only one that actually knows at the end of the day what did I do, and did I get there?

And then it's about the internal self. So that was something I struggled with along this journey was then I would get up after snoozing, and it would still be pretty early for me, and I'm like not satisfied with myself. But then I feel like everybody is disappointed at me because I didn't tell them. So you sit with that. And you have to tell the people. See, it's true.

It's true that they are – okay, it's not true that they're disappointed in you. That's not true. That's what I'm saying. But, however, here's why you feel that way, Joe, is because the people around you can feel that you're holding something back. Yeah. This is why, guys, I'm so selfish with the two of you in me talking about my stuff. Mm-hmm. And I say selfish because it's me expressing my truth.

I do it a lot. Yeah. And I'll be like, here's the truth of whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, because then you know I'm not holding back, and I know I'm not holding back. But if you're being any little tiny ounce of insincere, and here's what happens. It's like you get credit for something that you didn't deserve credit for, and then you feel this weight of guilt, and guilt is not from God.

Guilt is not good. Yeah. So that's why it's like, release, be honest, be truthful, be okay. You don't have to beat yourself up. But you can still just be honest, be clear. Yeah. Here's where I am exactly, just so you guys know. I'm feeling great, but here's how it started. I had to fight it off, but I feel awesome. Yeah. Well, and I just want to touch on this.

We won't go deep into it, but you say selfish because it is on one hand, and it isn't on the other. So on the unselfish side, it is exactly what you said. You're coming out showing you're not holding anything back, but then the thing that a lot of people don't understand is whenever you release something onto somebody, they pick up that energy. So if you have a negative situation you're going through, and you come to us, or vice versa, and you drop it on them, that energy gets transmuted, and now you feel it.

Yeah. You're carrying it. You're fighting with me, right? So it goes back to that idea. That's where the selfishness comes in, because if you're doing that 24-7, and there isn't the good why behind it, that's the selfishness. Well, I actually meant selfish in a positive way. Oh, I got you. Sorry. Yeah, and I understand there's good and bad selfishness. So for me, the word doesn't hold the same connotation it does for other people, and I've mentioned this before.

Like, I could say selfish, and a lot of people get really, like, tight about it. And I go, like, all right, in this way, I'm being – it's sort of like the same way I say the most selfish thing you can do is to give. Yeah. The most selfish thing you can do is to love. And it's true because I have this firm belief that it does come back to you.

So in a way, you're going to be serving you. You're not doing it for that reason, of course. Yeah. So in this particular case, Joe, yeah, I actually don't think that I'm doing something that harms anybody else in any way. I'm just admitting that I know I'm giving myself an edge. Oh, I see. By being very honest with you guys. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. And then there's – along the same way, the same line, if you just flip the word selfish, I could say I'm being selfish by not saying something to you, and then that would be the negative selfish.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, like, think about the word. Like, what does the word selfish mean? It's like if I'm being selfish, it's like ish. You're putting yourself first. I'm putting – yes. Like, this is something for me. Well, that's the truth. Like, I realize that if I talk and you guys listen and I'm honest, yes, I'm helping you 100%. I'm helping you know me, and I'm helping you so that you don't, like, hold on to, like, weirdness because I'm being quiet.

But at the same time, I know that by your willingness to listen, thank you, you know, that does help me. Yeah. So I'm willing to do that. Not only am I willing to do that, I'm willing to admit that I understand that it's a sacrifice for you, and I appreciate it. Yeah. And then, well, you do it. You do it fast, too. And then it's a relief for everybody.

Yeah. So it's like you said, selfish things sometimes is the most selfless thing you can do for everybody is just by doing it. Yeah. Right? All right. I'm going to dive into a couple quotes I wrote down here, and then we're going to do a little recap, and we'll end the segment here. Quote time. Quote time. Jesus wasn't the only one. Talked about getting up early. Aristotle, been quoting him a lot lately.

He says, it is well to be up before daybreak. Daybreak. Again, before daybreak. This is the dark. It's dark. Okay? There's a reason why I set my alarm for the way I did, by the way, and what's interesting is it's because of the Arizona summers. That's why the time got picked because I wanted the darkness. There's a difference in the dark. If you get up at 4.30 in Arizona in the middle of the summer, there's traffic outside because people are already, like, going to construction sites and they're trying to beat the heat.

Yep. Now, 4.30, 5 in the morning in the winter, it's dead. Yeah. But in the summer, if you want that quietness, you've got to hit 3.30. So then, you know, I can adjust in the winter or not, but 3.30 no longer scares me because of that reason. But there's something about daybreak. Okay. So he says, it is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.

Boom. I mean. Three really great things that we all want. I'll take it. I'll take it. Health, wealth, wisdom. Wow. Yeah. That's great. He's not saying, like, sleep eight hours a day for your health, wealth, and wisdom. He's going to get up before daybreak. Mm-hmm. And then I'm going to tell you on the other side of this equation, if you want to be one of those people that are like, you've got to get eight hours and burn, burn, burn.

Good. You do what you've got to do, but get up early. Yeah. Yeah. And don't make excuses. And if you're tired one day, then change whatever you've got to change, but still get up early the next day. Well, and that's what's interesting, right, is because there's these certain sayings that we hear our whole life, and eight hours is one of them. It's not 100% true. It's true for some people.

But not everybody needs eight hours every single night because even when I was not, like, setting my alarm early, that didn't mean that I got eight hours. That just means that I made worse choices the night before. You know who talked about it? And got up later the next day. But I didn't get eight hours every day when I wasn't getting up early. Right. You know who talked about this a lot, this concept, was Viktor Frankl in his book about going through the Holocaust camps.

And when he was in the concentration camps, he's like, you think you need eight hours. You don't. To live, you don't need eight hours. And he's like, we didn't get eight hours. He's, by the way, you don't need a pillow and you don't need a blanket because we didn't get that. And, you know, and all of a sudden, like, if we were allowed two hours of uninterrupted sleep, it was like, oh.

I'm taking it. And you felt great, weirdly, when you woke up. He's like, you didn't need as much food as you eat. Like, you didn't need, like, we, what's interesting is they were given what they needed to barely survive. So it actually rose to the surface, what do you actually need? And people will say, I need my eight hours. No, you don't. You may want your eight hours.

Cool. But let's talk about just health in general. And it's going to be, all right, like, are you, what is your bedtime routine? And then we talk about the difference between being in bed, being asleep, and getting your REM cycle. And those are all different things. Yeah. And I think the eight hours was sort of set as this arbitrary thing. And then it's going to be, like, all right, give or take, depending on this and this.

And I don't think people have actually, like, accounted for now the fact that we have laptops in our bed and telephones in our bed. And that we have all these different distractions and all sorts of different things in our bed. And it's going, like, all right, like, what kind of eight hours are you actually getting? Yeah. And is it even eight hours? Like, when do you get into bed?

And then when do you get out of the bed? And during that time, how much of it is sleep? You know what I mean? All these questions need to be asked before you say, like, you know for a fact how many hours everybody in the world needs. Yeah. This is facts. Okay. I'm passionate about this stuff. All right. So, we ask yourself, who are you? Are you a procrastinator?

Brian brought this up, the idea of playing offense and defense. The other way of looking at this is, are you going to attack the day or are you going to be attacked by the day? Can you repeat that? Are you going to attack the day or are you going to be attacked by the day? Jim Rohn said this, either you run the day or the day runs you.

Love that one. Love it. Love it. All right. So, you got to put your feet on the ground. You got to just decide, this is who I am. You decided each and every day. And, yeah, that's it. Your very first decision of the day is going to be this big domino effect. We're going to get into some of that a little bit later. But, in our next segment, we're going to talk about God and how God does talk to us in the dark, give a few examples from our lives, and how you can start to set that up for yourself.

and I just have so much gratitude, like, more than I can even express. Like, I have gratitude for the teachers. I have gratitude for this whole studio, for the students in the class, for my scene partner, for Matt, and the craft itself, which I just was able to see so beautifully and so raw and vulnerable in not just myself, but everybody else, and it just has been such an amazing Hey, what's with all the sliding around shit?

What over? Did you say over? Nothing's over until we decided. Is it over when the German's mom put a heart rate on an A over now? Because I'm going, it's tough, it's tough, it's going. Who's with me? Let's go, come on. Uh, fast with addiction. So you'll have to go slower to make that happen. Whatever you're gonna mine, either do it before or after you say it.

Just give up. Just quit. Good, scratch your belly. Because in this life, you can't win. All righty. We're talking about waking up early, and we are talking about right now specifically how God talks to us in the dark. And we did mention a Bible verse this morning when Jesus said, in the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place and was praying there.

That is Mark 1.35. And so what is this power of the dark? I believe that there's a sacred space that God has for alone time with you. And a lot of the world right now is waking up. We are awakening to some of the hypocrisy that is seen in the news and in media and TV shows and movies and streaming devices and our cell phones and our notifications and even like our own priorities, you know what I mean?

I mean, it's sort of everywhere. And because it's so rampant, and because we've allowed it, honestly, to infiltrate our lives at every level, it can be very uncomfortable at first to just be alone. Yeah. Be alone with your own thoughts. And it can be difficult to, at first, deal with you to just sit and be and understand that you don't have a phone and you don't have somewhere to go and you don't have a TV show.

And so because you don't, what happens is you just like you rush for one of those things to make sure that you can fill the time. Yeah. Well, when it goes like even more than just the hypocrisy and all of that, it's the influence of opinion, the let me make you feel one way or the other based on showing you this or that. Let me push all of this information at you one-sided, and then you don't see the other side, right?

You don't see what else is going on because you're flooded with the one opinion, the one viewpoint, so if you don't go within, that's where we find the truth, right? That's where we find the inner, oh, okay, this is what I should be doing right now when things are taken away from us, which we all have felt during 2020. Yeah, and I think some of the pain there is that the truth hurts sometimes, you know?

ones, I did like a media-like restriction and just the understanding of, and I've talked about it a couple times, but the understanding of how much media I was watching, and that came from the fact that I was in need of prayer, in need of deep connection with God, and I was having a really hard time doing that because I kept hearing the shows that I was watching inside of my head in my quiet time.

I was hearing the characters, I was hearing all those things because that's all that was being put in, right? I mean, there was just hours and hours and hours, and as I've limited that, the quiet time has become so much more quiet. Yeah. There's two things I got really quick. One is Paul commented again, and he just added on to your point. He said, when other people are asleep, there's less mental noise.

You don't feel like everybody else because they're in their sleep state. You don't feel all of their thoughts, their energies because they're asleep. And then my second point there was just we need to have Paul on this show because he does divine roots with us, but I think it would be really cool to have everybody put a name to the face there. Yeah, so I remember Paul telling me this.

So the idea of what I call the traffic. There's a time when I like to ride my bike in the morning, too. I haven't done that in a while. But to wake up early, ride your bike when it's cold or when it's dark and it's quiet and there's only a couple of cars and you're one of the only people, it feels like, on earth that is like going right now.

And it's just you and your thoughts. It's a very powerful time. And what Paul is saying is all that traffic, all that noise, the cars, the whatever, he's saying it's even at a spiritual level quiet because people are sleeping. The world mentally and spiritually is asleep, which now all of a sudden gives you room to really listen and not hear all the distractions that are coming your way.

That's interesting. I got an interesting question for you. You write your book always in the morning because that is your time, but just based on that last thing, the title of your book is The Best Listener in the Room. It all goes around listening. Do you think that's part of why you only write it in the morning? Because, I mean, there's times at night where you are wide awake and you're not ready for bed quite yet.

You know, there's certain nights where we don't have class and you have your laptop. And I've never heard a story of you being like, yeah, I wrote for two hours at night. Usually it's in the morning. So I'm just curious. Yeah. Is it easier to tap into those concepts writing down in the morning for you? So the answer to your question is yes. It is easier. It is when I believe we as human beings are at our most creative state.

And so I have written several times during the day or at night, but I tend to rewrite whatever I wrote. And that's okay. That's all right. But I, you know, if, as I get to know me better and listen, I know that there's this sacred space and it's used for a particular thing. So, so, so, and, and as we've mentioned, you know, life has this funny way of doing things to you and adjusting you.

So this show in particular became something very important to me. It became a part of my ritual, became a part of my tithing, the way that I want to give back. Um, it, it, it just, it became a part of just being with you guys in a, in a good space and getting us to a new level. And yet I can't deny the fact that the two of you didn't used to come in until seven or eight in the morning.

And so I used to have three, four hours to myself. Yeah. I don't get that anymore. Sure. If I'm lucky, I get two hours because you're now in by six. Let's say even I wake up at three 30 by the time I get in, it's four 30. That's only an hour and a half. Like today I only had about an hour. And then because this show matters to me so much, I'm trying to get ahead on it because a lot of times what I'll do is I'll prepare for the show before the show.

So I'm actually writing still. I'm writing every day. That, that was what I committed to doing. Yeah. Was to wake up and write. 100%. I feel better. I, I like writing my book. My book is, is fun, but there, there's also this amount of, um, there's, there's a delicate balance between me making excuses and also me trusting that things need to happen sometimes in my life. Some, some adjustments need to be made mentally in order to, for me to find the, the thing that I was supposed to write about.

And it's already happened several times now where I went on like a three month hiatus from writing the book, but I was still active in the morning doing different things. But, but then when I came back to the writing of the book, I know for a fact I wasn't mentally where I needed to be to write the thing that I wrote. So I had to have changed before I would have been ready to write that.

So there's a certain amount of trust that has to come in. But at the same time, I can't just be like, well, God's got it under control. So I'll just like, wait till he tells me to write. It's like, no, that's not the case either. Yeah. You know, I got to continue to be honest with me. Yeah. Either way, you have to take the initiative, right? God's never going to tell you, okay, right now is the time where you get to go be an actor, you know, right now there's an opening in Hollywood and like all that work you've been doing, I see it paying off.

And right now is when you get up and you go do it. And that's your break. Like, no, it just happens. So he will provide in the right moment when the right opportunity comes, but you have to do the work. You have to take the initiative, you know, it's, it goes back to you internal and that should give you power because we talk about this idea of don't let control get to you.

But this is the one area where it's okay to be in control and, and let control go to God, but you're in control of you and what you do and your choices. And that should empower you because then, you know, I can set myself up on a positive track or a negative track every day, depending on the choices I make. Yeah. Well, and, and I, you know, this goes to one of those deals, Joey, where I would just I know what you're, I know what you're trying to say.

So I'll just adjust the word. Yes, please. Um, rather than saying we're in control in this area, it's really, um, we are willing to take accountability for where we are and understand that the choices and thoughts and, and things that we have done have led to who we are. And we understand that the choices and things we do and say are going to determine who we're going to be.

Yeah. And, and I am in control of my thoughts. I, I, I am able to adjust my thoughts and those will alter my future one way or the other. And going back to Viktor Frankl, that was his whole thing. He went through concentration camps. Did he choose to go into a concentration camp? No, he did not. Did he choose to get beat? No, he did not. Did he choose to sleep on a urine infested, you know, floor?

No, he did not. No, he did not. But he did choose how he decided to reflect upon those things, what he decided to think about. And that created for him a pathway to surviving, getting out, writing a book about it and, and becoming the man that he became, who's now like looked back upon and, and, and people reflect on his writings maybe in a, in such a way that they would have never done had he not been through that horrible experience.

Yeah. Okay. Uh, there's a, a doctor that I really enjoy listening to. He's passed away since, but, uh, his name's Dr. Wayne Dyer and he used to quote this guy. Uh, I think it's a guy. Yeah. Rumi says, the breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep. He says it twice.

Don't go back to sleep. Like I'm warning you, whatever, whatever got you up, whatever the thing was that, that woke you, you, we are so quick to judge it. We are so quick to go, Oh, but, but, but I've been told the eight hours, but I've been told this is the way the world works. I've been told that I'm not, I'm not supposed to wake up before 6am.

That'd be weird. I'm not supposed to desire to wake up before 7am. That would be weird. Yeah. Okay. And so you're so afraid of sticking out, of not being normal, of not being like everybody else, that you're not listening. And if you get woken up for some reason, all this is, all this is saying is ask. Yeah. There's secrets there. Just ask. Why am I getting woken up?

What do you, what do you have to tell me? Ask. Like, and I think it goes to trust too, because I, I know for myself going through the journey, one of the things is you wake up and it's say one 30 and you go, um, I don't know if I should stay awake because what would I do? You know, and then I might be tired when I actually have stuff to do.

And, and you, instead, if you ask, okay, why am I up at one 30, then you might feel energized. You might not even need a nap that day, you know, because you, you work off the fuel of the momentum of asking and, and then you're, you feel proud. Well, and I, I hate to throw my wife under the bus here, but I will, um, because she, she's, she's a highly successful woman and successful in everything that she does with, with our family and with the kids and whatnot.

But one of, one of her habits I've noticed is, um, when she gets woken up in the middle of the night, she puts on a show always. And that habit has creeped into my life because she's doing it, makes me want to do it. And, and I used to be adamant, no shows in the bed. Well, then she just made that a habit. She would fall asleep to a show every day and I'm like, and so it's so hard when someone else is like eating chocolate next to you, not to eat the chocolate.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And so, so that's not a good habit that, that she's shared with me, but I can tell you that if she's being woken up and, and let's say she decides to watch a show and the show puts her quote, puts her back to sleep and it takes an hour. Okay. What else takes an hour? Yeah. Reading the Bible. What else takes an hour?

Uh, writing a sketch for her, for her sketch comedy group. What else takes an hour? Preparing for the day, making lunches, you name it. So does the show put you back to sleep or did the hour put you back to sleep? Yeah. Mm-hmm. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And, and that's where, that's where you go and you get honest with yourself and you're going, all right.

So like, what am I doing during that time? I got woken up. I can't, I don't know why I can't fall back asleep. Well then ask why. Yeah. I don't know why. Okay. You don't know why. Try to find that, that space and don't just judge it immediately. Yeah. Because then what happens, also we get angry. Mm-hmm. We judge ourselves, we get angry. So you wake up and you're mad that you didn't get sleep.

And so instead of being mad, you might be like, hey, I didn't get much sleep last night, but look what I accomplished. Yeah. Yeah. That's a different feeling. And then you earn the sleep later. That's right. Because some of the stuff you needed to do was already done. So then you go, oh, the time that I was going to do that, let me take a nap. Let me take a nap.

As a matter of fact, my wife and I took a nap yesterday. And as you guys know, I nap every day. Mm-hmm. And we woke up. We were watching a movie with the kids, actually. And I just laid down. And she's like, babe, you're going to fall asleep. And I was like, I know. Yeah. Right. So she curled up next to me. I held her on the couch.

The kids watched the movie. And we just zonked out. And we woke up at the end of the movie. And she was like, oh, wow, a midday nap feels so good. And I was like, yeah, what I've been telling you. What did I tell you? You can have this life, too, baby. You can have it. All right. Denzel Washington says, I pray that you all put your shoes way under the bed at night so that when you've got to get up, your knees hit.

I'm sorry. I messed this up. I pray that you all put your shoes way under the bed at night so that you've got to get on your knees in the morning to find them. And while you're down there, thank God for grace and mercy and understanding. Denzel Washington has become a loud voice in the motivational personal development world. He's an outspoken Christian believer in God. And he speaks openly about his faith in that he gives the glory to God for the successes that he's had.

And he also is very quick to say any monetary success that he's had, any of the experiences, et cetera, they're not the meaning of life, interestingly. But he's a firm believer in getting up early. And when you get up early, you pray. So if you're a Denzel Washington fan, do as Denzel does. Get up early. Put your shoes under your bed. Get on your knees. And say thank you.

Yeah. I can hear it in my head. Say thank you. For what's already yours. Thank you for parents. Yep. And we used to say thank you for Bunny. All right. So, giving you some compelling reasons to get up. Jesus likes it. Aristotle likes it. Denzel Washington likes it. There are secrets in the breeze, in the dark, that you get access to when you get up early. You can talk to God.

All right. When we come back, we're going to talk about winning the day before it starts. It's going to be a very quick segment. So we're going to have a quick takeaway for the day. Winning the day before it starts. We'll be right back. I just have so much gratitude, like, more than I can even express. Like, I have gratitude for the teachers, I have gratitude for this whole studio, for the students in the class, for my scene partner, for Matt.

And the craft itself, which I just was able to see so beautifully and so raw and vulnerable in not just myself, but everybody else. All right. We want to win the day before it starts. It's all about getting up early. I'm going to go to a couple quotes here right off the bat. This is Sukant Ratnakar. Sukant Ratnakar. Ratnakar. It's a name I never heard until today.

But this person said, The first step to win yourself is wake up early. That's what he said. Oh, dang, Brian. Okay. Wake up early. Thank you. I've done that quote. That's right. First step to win yourself is wake up early. All right. And then Robert Brault says this. One key to success is to have lunch at the time of day most people have breakfast. Oh, thanks, yo.

You guys know I like that quote. Yeah. Why? He loves that quote. How do you know? Because half the day, I mean, half the time when I get a phone call at like 6 in the morning or something, I'd be like, good afternoon. Good afternoon, everybody. I love that. And I like going, I literally like calling it bedtime. I like going to bed, going to, like, this is my nighttime at like between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Well, so much so that one of the local agents, Ruth, who's fairly close to us, understands and knows now. She knows I'll be sleeping during that time. So she calls and she goes, or she texts, and she goes, if it's in the middle of the day, she goes, I know you guys are probably between day one and day two right now. So if you want to hit me back in day two, I have this question for you.

And it's hilarious, but it goes back to you train people, right? So people learn. It's like, oh, Matt's going into day two right now. Well, some people learn. Some people learn, for sure. Those who listen. And by the way, listening deeply is a subject that's coming up this week. But Ruth is one of those that does listen, and she does learn. She is teachable, which is good.

So anyway, so here's the day. Here's the idea of winning before the day starts. I believe that you must get up before there's even a chance to fail. What do I mean by that? Well, I can tell you guys that I have never that I can think of. Now, I hate to say the word never. So let's just say 99.999% of the time. I personally, and I don't know about you, but I do not schedule anything important that involves me and another human being between the hours of 4.30 a.m. and 7.30 a.m.

Yeah, yep, this is facts. Agreed? Yes. Okay. Therefore, if I get up before 7.30, if I get up like a good hour or more before that, if I beat that, the time that any possible thing could come up, there's no way I can miss it. Yeah. That's super important. It was interesting going into that. Paul asked me last night. He said, why do you guys do the show so early?

He's like, why do you get up that early to do the show at 7? He was curious. That's a good question. And I told him exactly what you told us. I said, well, number one, the people that we're talking to, our audience for this show specifically, is up at this time. Because they're out there going to work or getting stuff done early because they understand. Or they want to be the type of person that gets up at this time.

And this might give them the motivation to get up at this time. Yeah. Specifically this episode. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then number two is what you just said. It's the 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. We're not going to have something that gets in the way. We have a casting. Cool. Most of those start at 9 or 10. So we take the hour right after the show. Yeah. Get whatever needs to be prepped, prepped.

And we go about our day. The earliest anything's ever scheduled here is 8 o'clock. And if that's the case, what do we do? We just – the show's done a little bit quicker that day. Mm-hmm. But you're right. That was one of the main reasons for choosing this time was I never have anything to do between 7 and 8. Yeah. That's how he swung me back then.

That's right. Now, here's where I screwed up, though. And I mean this, actually. I did have something to do during that time. Yeah. True. And then I filled it with this. And honestly, I had to, like, pull the two of you kicking and screaming for almost 8, 9 months to try to get on board with, like, the importance and different things and this and that, which took a lot of energy.

Mm-hmm. And there were – I mean, obviously, by the way, you guys are great. Yeah. But truth be told – No, but that's the truth. It's taken a lot of that mental space that was used for me. Sure. And I've been now using this time to pour out to others. Mm-hmm. Because if you think about this – like, think about today, right? I probably spent 45 minutes preparing for this episode.

Mm-hmm. Okay. And you read it through it this morning. You're like, hey, that's a good episode. I'm like, thanks. Yeah. I spent a lot of time on it. I really wanted it to be good. Well, that time, that 45 minutes spent writing, preparing, now speaking, and now you put another hour into the time here on the actual show, right? And so you're going, all right, all that time is not put into the book, not put into the publishing, not put into something that's going to come back to me directly and my accolade or whatever.

But this all goes back to my why. I don't care about those things. This is not about me and my ego. I really don't – like, if it was that, the show wouldn't be at 7. Mm-hmm. And it wouldn't be every day. It's too hard to do it every day. Yeah. For, you know, because we're building something, but it's a slow build, and the truth is we know for a fact that YouTube doesn't like our content.

We already know this. Mm-hmm. I mean, and I'm sorry if this is offensive to people, but it shouldn't be. They just are. That's facts. And so the fact that we talk about God and Jesus – I mean, YouTube goes, well, I'm going to turn the volume down on your channel. I know – they do that. Yeah. They do it. Mm-hmm. So it's an uphill battle. We're fighting.

So to say that you're – like, we're doing this for selfish reasons, it couldn't be anything but the opposite of that. Yeah. Right? But this is now – and it came to you. So from God, I believe, through Brian, this idea of this is what we need to do, and as we've done it, we've been blessed. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I will not say for one second that the show has not been a blessing to me.

So it goes back to that good selfishness, right? Yeah. So, like, I do this. I do it for others knowing it's going to come back to be good. All the kicking and screaming I was talking about, guys, like, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Mm-hmm. Because of how close we are and the vibe we have and, like, there's just the unconditional love that has been honestly earned.

Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't given to us because we're family. I'm sorry. Because we're family, it was harder. Yeah. Yep. Facts. Okay. So we've got this thing that now we get to do that we all respect, that we all love, and, you know, and it doesn't matter the views. Mm-hmm. It doesn't matter to us. And I look on here and I'm going, like, Dakota usually signs off and goes, hey, guys, I got to go.

Mm-hmm. That's so cool that there's a community of people that use the show in order to communicate with one another in the morning to say, hey, hey, are you successful today? Cool. Me too. Hey, let's tell some jokes back and forth. Like, that's great. Yeah. Yeah. You know? 100%. It's an amazing thing. All right. So you got to set up the plan. So in the morning is your time to connect with God in the morning, connect in the darkness.

Look at your schedule. Make sure you're not going to miss anything. Set up a plan for the day that's going to be good and solid. Hopefully you've already got your week planned, and then you just do little adjustments in the morning. And then guess what? Then you let it go. Mm-hmm. Then you got to be willing to improvise from there because life's going to come at you.

You know, there'll be a flat tire that comes up. There'll be something that happens. The rain hits, and it's like, okay, I got to make some adjustments on the thing that I planned on doing. It's going to be cool, but it's so much easier to make an adjustment from having a plan than from you don't have a plan, and you're just trying to figure it out, and your whole life becomes one adjustment to the adjustment to the adjustment.

And you have trouble with improvising? February improv class is enrolling now. That's a good point, Joey. That's a very good point. That was it. Just a quick little plug. Throwing that in there. I heard it. I was like, eh, I'm going to do it. It was pretty shameless. I liked it. Speaking of shameless, um… Ooh, okay, shameless. I love Joey. I know you were setting him up, right?

I was setting him up. I'm double setting him up because I'm not sure he picked up on it. Double setting him up. No, yeah, I didn't the first time, no. Time now for Brian Sweeney's Shameless Plugs. Shameless Plugs! Hello, everybody. Yeah, we do have February classes coming up. So you got time still to sign up for them classes. Our Wednesday adult improv is so full that literally you have to jump on a waiting list because it's that full and that awesome. So be sure to do that and jump into all our classes coming up here in February. Read Matt's book, Acting is My Day Job, the first book he wrote. Boom. Second one's still in the works.

Seven Strategies to Market, Make Money as an Actor. That's right. That's right. Throwing that tag. And that's what I got for you today, guys. Yeah, what else we got going on? We got Masterclass coming up. The audition for that is due by tomorrow night. So if you're interested, you should reach out about our Masterclass coming up. And the Chaos Comedy Show, I'll say this past weekend, was a lot of fun. So grateful to the audience that showed up. We got some good reviews. So look out for our next show coming up in February. Should be a blast.

A blast as well. And I think that's it. So I want to end here. And by the way, somebody asked, I did not know that Paul was Russian. Well, yes, he is Russian. He's very Russian. As a matter of fact, Paul owns a barbershop. It's called Barberlosophy. And it is in the neighborhood here. So for real, if you want to get your hair cut, you should go to Barberlosophy.

Barberlosophy. It's right here next to the studio. Best haircut in town. Plus, you will get a spiritual makeover while you're there. Yeah, it's a big old boost. Just walking in the door. You just go, it doesn't matter who got your hair. You just walk in the door. And Paul's just vibe is everywhere. All right. So you wake up early in the morning. We connect with God. We get ahead of our schedule. We get ahead of anything that might surprise us.

And what does that do for you? This is the biggest and last takeaway. What does that do for you? It eliminates the panic. And if you allow yourself, it puts you into a state of relaxation. In a state of, I can do this. In a state of, I'm not so worried. And from relaxation, from being in a state of, of neutral and not, not being highly emotional one way or the other, we make better decisions.

So by making that very first decision to set yourself up for success will be a domino effect in allowing you to be in the right state of mind right away to keep making good decisions throughout the day. All right. Thank you so much for tuning in, everybody. God bless. Have a great day. Thanks for listening to Mornings with Matt. Please like, subscribe, and follow us at Dearing Acting Studio to keep up with the latest content.

For more information on classes, private lessons, or professional development coaching, visit www.dearingstudio.com. Have a Dearing Day, everyone. Have a champy day, everyone. Ruff.